Alongside
by happyinkycacti
Summary: Alternate ending to The Last Jedi (so SPOILERS). Kylo/Rey long romance. From the moment they had been connected, they had felt this link grow into them. Now embedded in their bones, they had to live with it, to find a way to accept it, make the world better using it. Even if they had to live every waking second alongside each other.
1. Chapter 1

**[So a few comments before you embark on the journey I am trying to call to life. I am not a native english speaker, so I will happily take comments to improve my writing. Also, I am working with an alternative ending where Kylo has followed Rey just after the supreme leader's murder. Hux is now in control of the entire First Order fleet and will grow accordingly. For the length, this is like an intro so it is short but the chapters will lengthen with time. I want to write a long haul story so if the reviews are encouraging, I will do so!**

 **Have fun, tell me what you like, and the next chapter is already on its way!]**

Rey was standing just outside what looked like a second opening of the mine. As she was moving the rubles around, making way for her friends and allies to pass through the breach in the mountain as they flee from the unceasing fires of Hux's armies, she tried not to think too far ahead. The strenuous process was taking even more time and energy as needed because of all the thoughts bouncing around in her head. How would they react? Would they understand?

She thought to herself: "Don't think about it. Think about the 45 boulders you are trying to move around like they are freaking apples."

She closed her eyes, focusing on the task at hand. Slowly, she saw their faces. Then, their bodies. Their entire bodies, safe and sound. Too few bodies; but bodies nonetheless. She had left them legions. They were now a handful of shivering figures climbing out of a gaping hole. But they looked thrilled to see her. Finn took her in his arms. She felt safe and warm. She felt home.

Leila's hand touched her shoulder, a proud grin on her wrinkled visage, tapping a couple times before continuing her ascension of the cliff, getting to the haven that had become the Millenium Falcon. And then she stopped.

What was just seconds ago a warm and fuzzy feeling Rey's stomach, fueled by the happy and light atmosphere of reunion that was floating into the crisp air of the mineral planet was now morphing into a lead ball. The air buzzed with a weird tension, and then buzzed some more with the angry sound of blasters loading.

The scavenger knew way too well what they just saw.

As she wiggled free out of Finn's arms, she rapidly mounted the cliff to the top, where he was standing. She cried some words on a loop; all of them meaning to convey a ceasefire. Her distraught gaze flipped back to her friends, exposing her back to their target.

She could feel every fiber of his being. He was calm and stoic. From his soul emanated the feeling of someone who is ready to die, if things really come down to this. It calmed her just as much as it panicked her. The eyes of the ones she called friends were all too intense on her face. They were determined. Seeing just on the other side of her shivering body the cause and very own rotting roots of all their problems. Leia, standing tall and steady on what seemed to be the most unstable stack of pebbles, rose a hand just an inch over her waist as if she was ready to let the blasters turn everything into dust at the flick of her wrist. But her hand was trembling. Nothing was played.

"Rey. What exactly are you doing in front of him?" Leia said, her voice cracking with age but certainly not with uncertainty.

"He's okay. He's with us now. He killed Snoke. He came with me. He left the order." She was cackling like it was her life on the scales… knowing the connection that was thriving between them, even after the departure of Snoke, maybe it was her life she was defending as well as his.

Finn was eating his cheeks from the inside out, growling and mumbling to express his furry. She was way too aware of how he was probably feeling in the moment. She felt life a traitress to the rebellion. But she was if the story unfolded as she saw when she had touched him, a savior to the cause. He shifted from behind her, his tall and steady silhouette advancing with so much ease that you could see that he was using the exact minimum of energy required to accomplish his actions. She had never felt him so calm, as he was usually a mountain of bubbling wrath. Yet he was.

"What do you have to say for your defense, _Kylo Ren_." announced Leia. The sound of this name was filled with disgust and ridicule. As she was talking to a little kid playing around and hurting everyone in the nursery. Maybe that is how she saw him. As a big, strong and dangerous baby. Because he was hers.

"I would like to be called Ben." His profound raspy voice resonated in the air. General Organa flickered onto her solid base. '' And I have nothing to say except that I am here from now on. She has my saber. She can feel my every thoughts and will. If I cut the connection with her, that's when you can ask me how you are supposed to trust me''

Her gaze flew slowly from his to Rey's: '' Is what he's saying veridic? '' The young Jedi shook her head rapidly, her lips forming a straight line, her eyes locked into the abyss of her superior's pitch-black irises.

"How do we know she is not under his spell. That he it's not just another sucker punch?'' The humming of approval passed around in the limited crowd.

Rey could feel Leia's force asking if she could communicate with hers. She let her in, momentarily because Ben's presence was so overwhelming that she feared she would lose herself if any more energy inhabited her.

"Because I tell you that she is telling the truth.'' They all stopped for a moment. '' But I will not risk the little we have left. Put some restraints on him.'' Hurt passed through her eyes. '' And on her as well."

Some people Rey barely knew approached her with shackles and passed them around her wrist to the point it bit her flesh. The sting grew as they moved her around to what she has come to know as her ship. Finn passed by her side, disgust and incomprehension in his gaze, BB-8 following him and another man closely but whining at her approach.

Rey whispered: '"It's all gonna be okay BB-8. It's just all temporary." Well, she hoped so.

* * *

They had been put in a room that could have been called a broom closet if a cleaning tool had even seen the deck of the Falcon. They were facing each other, eyes locked since the moment the door closed, as if in a trance. Ben broke the spell to rub his wrists as good as he could. The mere fact that he could break them in a flash but was still respecting the bounds was an example of the trust they now could have in him.

Rey began to approach her hand from his. Slowly, steadily, as their first physical encounter, she slid her hands closer to his. Their knees were squished against each other and her foot was going to sleep from the weight of his buttock on her ankle. They were close, so the distance was not as demanding to cross as when they were galaxies apart.

In a simple motion, she rubbed his wrists. She was not seeing a lot into it, just a gesture to ease this containment a bit. But the contact of her finger with his skin lit the air on fire. As it once did. As it would always do, she secretly hoped.

Felling his gaze on her head, she took back her hands. A shiver of disgust filled her. It was still Kylo Ren we were talking about. Maybe was he switching to the light side, changing his name and his allegiance, he was still the monster she knew. She piled the thoughts she just had in the back of her head, fixing her vision on the door right next to them and clenching her jaws. He was useful, that was all. She was a courier bringing an estimated weapon to a cause she was believing in. End of story.

He raised imperceptibly an eyebrow in return: "What was that?"

"It was just to help. Nothing to be read in it."

"I am not talking about the gesture. But the thoughts."

"You know all too well that it was nothing. It's this weird link that your master put in there." She banged her head against the metal surface for emphasis "It's scrambling my landmarks. Don't take pride in it. It's gonna go away when I don't have to be your white flag anymore."

"For someone who was once so eager to see me desert everything I ever believed in to jump on the bandwagon of your hopes and dreams, you now seem really hostile."

The silence following this sentence drew longer.

"You know way too well that you are doing the right thing. That we could not continue to fight you after all that the first order has taken from us. That fascism and oppression have got to end. That we are a part of the solution to do this. You and me. It does not mean that we have to do it holding hands."

Ben pinched his lips, nodding his head in agreement. "I see what you mean and I can assure I am of the same opinion." His eyes cleared for a brief moment: "Anyway, you would only slow me down." His face was still adamant and his tone equal, but something in his whole attitude told Rey that he was as close as he could get to joking. A smile flashed, faded, on the corner of her lips.

Moments passed again as the tension in their muscles grew fiercely. They were awkwardly moving every two minutes, trying to figure out a way to be comfortable. After a couple of twist and turns, Rey's back was facing Ben's stomach and his legs were spread out. Slowly, as she was asking permission, she laid back on his chest. They were comfortable, at last. For how long? Nobody knows. But for a bit, it would not hurt anyone…

* * *

Rey woke up, her head rested on Ben's shoulder. Her head jerked in surprise and the felt painful impact at the top of her skull as it impacted her cellmate's nose. He muttered in pain, half awake, and she felt a warm and viscous liquid fill her hairs. Blood.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to…"

But the door opened as she was apologizing. A dark hand reached out in the dim light of the closet and extirpated her from the close quarters with the Sith Lord.

"Leia wants to talk to him. She wants you close by to play the human lie detector." Finn winced when he saw the back of her head: "Are you okay, your head is covered in blood? Did he…?"

His questioning stopped when he saw Ben's nose, hemorrhaging blood as he was drawn from their makeshift cell. A smile grew large on the trooper's face: "That's what I am talking about! Great job Rey! What did he say to deserve this?"

He laughed a little, the goons surrounding Ben did the same, escorting the bizarre duo to the general's quarters – how little they may be on this ship. As they were walking, the two last Jedi's stares magnetized to each other for an instant, knowing too damn well that this encounter would decide both their faith.

Because without each other, any cause would be damned.


	2. Chapter 2

Rey would never have thought that her own ship, the ship of a man as energetic and bright as Han Solo, could become so gloomy. As she entered the small cabin, bumping into Ben as they got seated side by side, it was the only word that came to her mind. All the principal lights were disconnected from their sockets, hanging at the very end of their wires. Only the flickering lights of the equipment's diodes kept the room from the absolute dark. Too many shadows were dancing all around; brushed with alternating colors, the faces of their interlocutors were grave.

Facing them was Leia. Wrapped up in a shimmery grey gown from head to toe, her hands were locked in her back, waiting for the guards to finish their task. In the farthest corner of the room, Chewie was leaning against the wall, eyes fixed on Kylo. He was clearly conflicted, seeing at the same time his beloved nephew and the murderer of his very best friend in the whole explored world. The rest of the room emptied from the guards and other superfluous staff. The room was cold, adding to the arctic climate created by the tensions amongst the occupants.

"Why are you here?" General Organa's lips stayed almost immobile. Her eyes were clearly anchored on Ben, letting everyone know that it was him she was addressing.

"Because I have nowhere else to be, really." He began to feel annoyed. The procedures were wearing out his limited patience. It's something that can happen when you passed from controlling a virtually endless fleet with humongous resources to being cornered by your own mother and a crossbow waving teddy bear. He felt humiliated but repressed his reaction – just as he has learned to do to survive.

"You know way too well this answer is not what I am looking for."

Ben's head tilted with an ironic smirk. Rey felt her stomach wheel around. "What you are looking for, you can easily find. But I will spell it out for you. I killed Snoke, then tried to recruit Rey into the first order. She fought like I knew she would. She had interesting arguments. Nothing was keeping me in the First Order now that the supreme leader was deceased. I am now exploring a new path." It was clear to everyone in this room that he would not elaborate. Ben thought to himself that even if he wanted to, he couldn't. The reasoning behind his defection was not all that clear. There was nothing else for him to do on this ship. Hux was a real pain in the ass and would continue to be for as long as he was breathing. The girl was, to say the least, interesting. He wanted all this mess to end. He wanted to be on the winning side. And high in the hierarchy. That was the only thing he knew.

Rey felt his momentum of grandeur. A chill ran down her spine. She stayed silent as this was not the time to question him. It was Organa's job for now. Ben had a side look for her. She could see crusted blood all over his mouth and chin. His nose wasn't damaged, but she must have done some havoc to let that much blood.

All this time, Leia's glare was still nailed to her target of the moment. "Do you know what your being here means? What you are embarking on? I am not teaching you anything when I say we are only a handful now. We have to replenish. Why am I supposed to accept that you would leave a prosperous enterprise to join the thing you hate the most. You've done so much for them, more than I ever thought you would." She was walking slowly toward her son. The next sentences were barked in a hateful manner: "After you've killed the love of my life. Damn, for all I care, you've killed my own son! You are nothing but a puerile assassin that wanted to be the chief of something. You won't be that here, you can be sure of that." She backed off, her hands flattening her dress.

Still silently looking at the scene unfold under her eyes, Rey was seeing another facet of her leader's personality. The word around was that Leia was once known to be hot-blooded and tempestuous. She made her mark, fended for herself in a man's world. Only an undiluted strength of character could have led her through the trials of a lifelong fighting the greater evil. That was what she was seeing. And knowing the fearlessness and bold essence of her companion, it was easy to explain the always shifting, ever scorching psyche of their offspring.

"I understand your reservations. I would not trust myself in this. If you want the truth, I have very little hope for your cause. If a better opportunity shows up, I will probably take her and disappear." Rey was getting bothered by her mention as if she was an accessory to the plot, a tool to him. "But if it is my return to the first Order you fear, I can assure you that I won't go back. There is nothing for me there anymore."

He thought to himself: "I can't grow anymore there. I can't become more than what I am now. My evolution lies next to her. And she chose this tin can as her flagship…"

A screech with deep undertone resonated in the room. Chewbacca took a step forward.

"You are right." Ben nodded "And as true as it is that I can't be of any use to them if I am neutralized, I can't help YOU either. Your game, not mine." He paused and flicked his shoulder, getting behind Rey's and projecting her on the floor, at the feet of the Wookie. "And she has nothing to do with what you decide to do with me. You trust her."

From under her bent arm, Rey's eyes passed over Ben's stare. He was cold and she could feel in the Force that he was dimming their spiritual relationship. Still, she could feel a filet of connection still throbbing, but the boundless exchange between their very soul was muted. As for now. She could feel the strain it took on him to sever their association and was fairly certain that it would come back gallop back as soon as he would let down his guard. A big furry hand took her by her shoulder and put her on her feet, escorting her out of the room.

"Wait." Leia pivoted in her direction: "What do you think of his discourse, Rey?"

"When I touched him, I saw a light. It's all I can say for sure. He isn't lying, too."

Leia shook her head in approbation. "Let me deal with him from now on."

Rey was escorted out of the room.

* * *

As she was relieved of her shackles, familiar faces kept arriving to salute her back on what had begun to be considered as her vessel. As she was progressing through the reunion, a memory kept coming back. Kylo, back in Snoke's quarters, had clearly mentioned his wish to see the past extinguished. What did he mean by "the past". This massive concept that encompassed everything we really know.

Was he referring to the century-old concept of good and bad? Or as Luke has said to her on Anhch-To, the Jedi way. A pinch to her heart. Luke. He was clearly gone. She couldn't find him anywhere, as when he had refused himself to the force. But before, it was a resonant absence, a stinging sensation that something was missing from the balance of things. Now, the Force was calm, still, whole. He was truly gone.

She found herself in a remote engine room, a tear rolling down her cheek. She just got to know him. She didn't know why he was gone or how he could have been defeated. Maybe, someday, somebody would have the answers. But today was not that day. It was the day of too many things already.

The ship was almost silent for an hour. She was sitting in meditation, humming soft melodies to herself and trying to calm down her cogitations when the exchange of words grew louder in the commandment room. She slipped from her perch in a swift manner and silently sauntered to the source of the noise. The crew was clustered around an old mapping system, far away from the technology they were used to. Some people were trying to determine what the pictograms used meant and others were already talking of a way to go from now on. Organa was at the center of the melee, pitching planets as if they were a grocery list. Each one was too close to a base, too far from potential allies, too hot, too cold… Rey searched in her limited inventory of known planets. Maz's was too political. And nobody would want to go on Jakku, not even herself.

"Babali." Said a slender man in the corner, his hands rapidly fidgeting with the tools on his belt "My father was a researcher for the Obroan Institute. Everything is deserted now because Stopa is dead… but it could work. I remember that the quarters were decently armor-clad because of the beasts migrating once a year in the area." He advanced to the table, hustling every soul in his way. He began to type the coordinates. A jungle planet in the Outer Rim territory. Their allies were just close enough. The center of the galaxy was as far as it could possibly be. "It's clearly not much. Barely any armament. But enough food, clean water and pieces to repair anything. And if I recall, still one or two exploration vessels. Industrial grade, nothing to go fast, but everything to go steadily." He was a fast talker, the kind that does not know when to stop; "Being an archeological institute and all, it will have clear mapping of the habitable planets in the surrounding, archives of nations living there as well as their technological capacities"

Organa put a hand on his arm "Yes, Daris… it's something." She volte-face to the cockpit and hailed Chewie the new coordinates. Rey got to her "May I?" a faint smile painted over the young girl's face. She was tired, she had lived enough for today and needed the familiar feeling of the commands in her hands with the Wookie by her side. Leia acquiesced and stretched her hand in the direction of her usual seat. A tan man was pressing on Chewbacca's bench, pointing in the distance and trying to learn about this ship. As she was minding her own business and going to her place, he intercepted her: "Poe Dameron." He said, a large hand hovering her way and broad smile encouraging reciprocity. "I am proud to finally meet you, Rey."

She shook his hand and smiled back, just to access her bench and begin to do what she was good at. Whilst she was working, she felt the channel between her and the prisoner come back. Loneliness. Anger. Humiliation. Sadness. Darkness. Fatigue. All but the sensations he should have felt from being at his right place.

Rey shook her head. It was not her problem anymore. It was Organa's.

But she couldn't help sending calm and compassion from every pore of her being his way.

 **[As we don't really know how Kylo/Ben would act on a « normal basis » I am forging him a personnality. His intense and unrestrained side will come back to haunt him, don't be afraid, but I wanted to add a little depth to the character. Tell me what you think! Give me review, it will drive me to continue writing!]**


	3. Chapter 3

The feeling of the metal against his finger was charming. He could not say the same for the feeling of it on his buttocks, back, neck and head, but a throne is a throne and it was something he could accommodate, knowing that it emphasized his new position.

"Supreme leader?" said a trooper as he entered the room.

"Yes?" answered Hux, a little smile blossoming on his face.

The dark circles around his eyes had just expanded since he was running everything. He felt older. But he felt wiser. He had changed his clothes, getting rid of the epaulets he once wore to make himself look bigger, of the signs of his ranks, of his glued back hairs. His red flocks were now in their natural position, forming a halo of copper around his head. He was wearing a fitted charcoal coat and simple pants of the same color, ending in some dark red boots. To honor Snoke, he wore golden over sleeves cut from the suit of his previous leader. he knew that his father would have been as proud as he was able to be.

"We are approaching the Clansmen den. Do you want the TIEs ready?"

"Hm. Yes, I will go with the fighters. Have a dozen ready and inform our best pilots that they will accompany me." He caressed the burned mark on the throne, left behind by the bitche's lightsaber. "We need this to work. Get General Phasma to come too. We never know."

When their previous ship was destroyed by the kamikaze from the Resistance, he had called in a recovering team to excerpt anything that could still be useful aboard. Meanwhile, another of their ships, who was now their flagship, had been made fully operational and filled with the remnant of the wreck. Amongst those things, then Captain Phasma was recovered and taken care for. In a couple of days, she was back to full health and promoted to his previous spot.

As he was flying to the humongous construction of ships, there was only one thought, invading every square inch of his mind.

He had to kill Kylo Ren.

* * *

Eight Warlords were aligned in the background of what once has been an operating Starfighter deck. They were sitting on wooden chairs of various formats – themselves being of pretty contrasting dimensions – each one right under an imposing backdrop of their clan. They were drinking from cups of wood or bone, slowly as they watched the new First Order Supreme Leader walk up to them. Hux was feeling sick, just for asking them for help. But they were rich and, as of this moment in time, neutral in the fight between the First Order and the resistance.

The first to talk was the Clawdite Clanslady: "What do you come here to beg for, human?"

Phasma grunted by his side, tightening her grip on her blaster.

"I come for two things, in fact. I am pretty sure you will end up giving them to me, lizard."

He knew that contacting the clansmen was a good idea. They were a coalition of eight armies that had let their original planet behind to grow only stronger. They were rich, influential and powerful, and they were all now following his lead. He knew very well that Snoke and Ren would have frowned upon taking mercenaries into the chain of command. But they were both respectively dead and deserted, so they weren't good examples of a good leader for the first order. From his throne room, he watched the cluster of ship disassemble to form eight individual motherships and a thousand of smaller fighters. He grinned as a handful of dark silhouettes stood out of the swarming mass to enter into hyperspeed.

Clawdites always made excellent bounty hunters.

* * *

It was now a couple of days since they first entered the orbit of Babali. They had a little difficulty finding the Institute at first, just to understand that the entrance was an excavation in one of the numerous mountains creating the landscape of the planet. The living quarters of the Archeological venue were above acceptable and the resources exactly what was needed to recover from the harsh last weeks. But they needed to move quickly in order to replenish their ranks.

A problem with an Intellectual's den was the complete lack of cells or anything to perform this function. Still having a prisoner on their hands forced the Resistance to lock him up in a shipping cargo in the basement of the facility. He was there ever since, getting visits only from General Organa and her entourage of the day.

Every possible team had been dispatched to a corner of the Outer Rim to contact the potential allies that did not respond to Leia's personal code. The thought behind this was that even if the commanders of these groups decided against helping the resistance, maybe a part of those groups was up to the challenge of keeping their flickering flames of hope alive.

Archeological cargo ships were taken to those planets. Slow but steady, as advertised by Daris, they would get the task done.

Rey was sent, with Poe Dameron, BB-8, and Chewbacca, to a Mid Rim planet where there was a potent black market. They hoped that they could find parts to reassemble Luke's old lightsaber there, and maybe other interesting things like ships or arms. Well, hope was a big part of this endeavor, but they were growing used to miracles as long as they worked for them.

"We are getting ready for the landing procedures." Said Rey, just before flipping a switch on the control board "Millennium Falcon here, permission to land?" They were all tensed. A planet full of criminals, traffickers and poachers was not the best place around to land the last parcel of machinery left to the resistance. But they had no more flexibility in their choices.

A gritty voice came through: "Permission granted. Please direct yourself to gate 6-EV"

Later, Poe and Rey were walking, face covered in stained rags, around what looked like an old spice market. Every stall was, instead of delicate aromas, exhaling gunpowder, oil, metal, and fear. They passed slave displays, organ parlors, and bounty hunter's booths. The crowd dispersed as they penetrated into a more eclectic region of the market. Things seemed more esoteric there, serpent skins, inflated eyeballs and jarfuls of fairy-like beings balancing from the ceilings of little stands, dry parts of almost any creature known gathering in wicker baskets here and there. Even the vendors seemed half-dead. A book dealer was venting the reputation of the works he had on deck. Amongst all the necromancy volumes, the magic tomes and the religious pamphlet was a complete shelf of lightsaber skeleton. Bits and parts scattered around the display, remnants of a greater time for the Jedi. Rey approached and sighed. To her, none of this was usable. Even if she bought parts from this probably overcharging merchant, she would almost certainly not be able to get anything out of her Kyber crystal. She had a moment of despair. She wasn't much, but without the lightsaber, she was almost nothing. She got back to Poe, who was dealing batteries with a half-plant half-fish kind of a man. If this exhibit had nothing of use in it, she was fairly certain that there was nothing for her on this planet.

And then she felt it. A terrible anger, an overflow of rage. Having had no time to anticipate it, she was tossed by the influx of raw emotion that she dropped to her knee.

* * *

The repented Sith burst the doors of what had become the center of command. Not satisfied with having ripped the door from its hinges, he crimpled it in the corner, not moving an inch whilst doing it. It felt like months since he had seen something else than a make-do cage with his hands bound by absurd pieces of metal. Him, the great Kylo Ren, a peerless warrior that had defeated armies by himself, was humiliated by four paper walls, like an obedient dog, waiting for his sentence.

Didn't he come to help? Was his message unclear? Was he not valuable enough?

His eyes gaged everyone in the room. Puppets, fools and feebles, that's all he was seeing. In the corner of the chamber, Organa was looking at him, half startled, half annoyed, with her hand's elbow deep in a box. Seemed like they were passing the archives under a fine comb to find anything that could serve them. Scroungers of the worst species, lost in the shallows, diminished to a vile gang of prideless scavengers. He was now not only humiliated but disgusted by their meek attempt at survival.

"You really think you will defeat the First Order with a lump of antiques?" his voice was not rumbling like thunder, more like a slippery serpent. The screaming, he had done while destroying the cargo in the basement, who was now a pile un rubbles and bent sheet metal. "You are that desperate? It's like a kid whose certain he would be able to defeat an endured warrior out of innocence and stupidity."

Right next to Leia, a slim man got a tool out of his belt, light it on and a faint buzzing sound, accompanied by small bluish bolts running along its extremity. Kylo laughed for a moment and made the tool stick on the nearby wall, out of reach of the glorified mechanic. While he was at it, he took the said mechanic against the wall too, having him wiggle his feet around to find a platform in the attempt to alleviate the chocking sensation.

"I will make it clear now. No attempt to attack me. Or even to defend yourself."

"Get. Him. Down." Leia's voice resonated all around the room. This crisp, loud voice that he had experienced every time he overstepped the line as a kid.

"No." He felt his answer was weak and continued "What do you want from me? Are you gonna let me rot in this cell until the war is over? Are you going to discard me like a little villain? Letting me wait in laughable restraints as I slowly die of boredom? Is that your masterplan? To discard all that I can give you?"

Leia took one step in his direction, then another: "Maybe I am desperate enough to searchthrough leftovers from another era. But I am not yet enough to give you a free pass. I know the restraints were too weak for you, I know it way too well. But your silent compliance was making my faith in your speech grow. You have now proven to be exactly what I thought you were. Just a disturbed, egotistical, no, narcissistic brat with a taste for violence." There was no pity in her voice, no love, no sadness. It was a war chieftain speech against a prisoner. "You can roam the entire facility if you want. Kill everybody. I have nothing to stop you. Every ship is gone. We are stuck here, on this dead end of a planet. You can go outside if you want, but I would recommend it as the living organisms out there are humongous and would eat anything. You can wait for a ship to come back, steal It and head to whatever planet you know the First Order to have a base. Return in the skirts of this Hux of yours, who will probably, spineless as he is, take you back because you canwaive a lightsaber around and scare his troops into submission. Or maybe you'll find another self-centered man of power for him to keep you as his little lap dog, as you did last time you didn't know who you were." She crossed her arms and stood on a solid base, as she always did: "Or you could be your own man, for once. If only you are able to stand up for yourself."

* * *

Poe was running as fast as he could with Rey in his arms, a handful of merchant creeping up on him from time to time to catch a glimpse of his cargo.

"Why is this big brute never there when you need him?" he raged, looking around for the path to their ship. "OH, look. An unattended pile of gold." His sight was far away, trying to get a pretty scary and pretty beefy grey-skinned humanoid coming his way to change his trajectory. Fortunately for him, the diversion worked just long enough for him to eclipse himself through a curtain of silks.

Rey regained the control of her thoughts, barely. She tried to construct the bridge between their consciousness she had experienced before. But she was overpowered by his fury. So she closed back her eyes and pictured herself on Jakku. She was sitting on top of a dune, her eyes seeing blinding gold for an eternity ahead. Nothing but the brush of the sand speckling against her cheeks, the sun on her hands and the complete silence. She harvested that calm. She immersed herself in it. And she projected it, as hard as she could.

While she was doing that, she understood. She accepted what was plainly before her eyes since the very first time they bridged their spirits. What Luke had told her, that the force was always in a balance, that she was the counterpart to Kylo Ren's dark, was not true anymore. She had darkness in her, as she had experienced in the dark cave. He had light in him, as she had experienced when they had touched souls. They weren't balancing each other ash opposite weights but needed each other to find equilibrium in them.

As like they were but one. As if they were, together, the Last Jedi.

 **[So, this chapter is a bit all over the place, but I have to put a lot in place before I can play out the real interactions I want to see for them to be realistic. Please bear with me, it's gonna get somewhere! Thanks for your support and I, as usual, love some feedback!]**


	4. Chapter 4

When the bridge opened, she felt it like a ton of bricks. Every fiber of her being was now actively linked to its mirror in his body. It was intense, like sharing the same essence, the same energy for a moment. She was well aware that she was strapped in a seat, with her two traveling companions heading back to the provisory base. Although she could perceive – the leather against her shoulders, the faint sound of talking, the rumble of takeoff, the belt's nylon biting into her neck – she could also vividly sense another perspective. She saw the atrium in which he was panting with anger and resentment, force-choking a weakening Daris against the wall and standing against Leia. The few remaining crewmembers present were either petrified with fear or slowly attempting something purely stupid to try and resolve the situation.

From his side of things, everything seemed to freeze after he experienced a foreign sensation of calm slither onto him. He saw Rey appear, attached to what seemed like a Millenium Falcon passenger seat, in the center of the action, just between him and his mother. Faintly, he could hear Organa give orders to get him back to his quarters. He felt the tight grasp of those who were playing the role of guards lift him from the ground, his body accepting the man-handling with close to no resistance. His gaze was solidly planted in the abyss of Rey's eyes. He could feel her very core, calm, equal to herself, strong. Her monolith appearance made his fit appear weak and inappropriate. For a second, Ben felt how powerful she really was. Yes, everyone was blabbering about her inexplicable comfort with the use of the Force, but she had that depth… that baffling immensity of a soul. It was almost humbling to share it.

He could hear her thought as they were his. Notions of unity, of interconnection and balance. How much he needed her, as surprising as it could sound. More than to find a way to accomplish himself, but to live. To impersonate what was their true destiny. The meaning of what they had both saw when they had first touched each other.

Ben saw her collapse into the dark side, building the mighty Sith she was promised to be. Rey saw him rise to the Light, conquering the galaxy as its legitimate liberator, opposing to the dark side with all the skill and brute force she knew he had. But none of these portraits were plausible. The reality had never been black or white, and for that was always in conflict. They could see before their eyes all the consequences of the never-ending clash between day and night: death, suffering, loss, and destruction. Having this in mind made defining who was good or bad a confusing endeavor.

They were back into something that looked like a research room. Desks covered in obsolete forms, relics of another time. As they were, in a way.

The guards found pointless to put the chains back on. The door was not even locked, as far as he could understand it. He was just isolated, waiting, again, for things to unfold. But she was there, ghostly presence from far away, now standing before him.

"What happened, exactly? I don't understand, really." She asked, impartial.

He felt ashamed, once more, but kept it to himself. "Yeah, wanting to keep things to ourselves in this…" she swirled her hand around "…will be kind of difficult."

"I got… irritated. By the stillness of the process. By my infuriating position in it. I am sure that you can understand how anticlimactic my situation can seem. I am sure I am talking to an insider when I say that waiting endlessly for nobody knows what is draining."

He was referring to her time on the desert planet. She nodded, her head falling on her ribcage. "I never trashed everything in my sight on Jakku, may I say."

An angel passed.

"I thought that only Snoke could… do this. Seems like this is a permanent thing." She inquired.

"I am not surprised. The Force can be quite stubborn, I am sure you can see that for yourself now."

"Not as inflexible as I thought."

She passed in his mind, brushing his consciousness. He shivered. He got to his feet and walked towards her with the decisive strut he was known for.

"Get out of there." The tall man's face was now inches from hers. She could see the details of the mark she had left on his face, the jagged edge of the scar, running from his jawline to his forehead in a macabre dance of pulsating flesh and dead tissue.

"Why?" He saw her lips form a determined pout, planting her intense eyes on his.

"Because you are not entitled to my mind! The fact that we are inexplicably linked doesn't mean we have to probe the extent of each other's brains."

"So, you think that we should discard this? Whatever this is?"

Even from that far away, he could feel her warm and soft breath on his face. It burnt his skin, particularly his scar… and his lips. He backed off, throwing his hands in the air all around him.

"Yeah! What, you think that after all the decay we have put both of our camps that we are so remarkably important to the universe? That we are central to the solution? The only thing you've uncovered is that we are part of the problem. That everything that is happening is because of the mere fact that our kind exist." All the pens in the room started to levitate, followed closely by ruffling papers, floating through the air around them. "That our connection to the world has toyed with our destiny from the very beginning."

She cut him harshly: "The problem has been our persistence to try and find the best way to conduct ourselves. Bad or good, Dark or Light, Lust or Abstinence, damn we even argued over red or blue!" in her sentence, "we" resonated as centuries of generation of Jedi and Sith. From the corner of his eye, he could see a silver shadow tremble and disappear amongst the paper storm. They both flipped to see it but it was gone.

"And so, we can change a millennium of bickering by morphing ourselves into introspectors? By sitting on a rock and find balance from within? You really are a number, scavenger, I can give you that." His voice was like a bouncing fall, solemn and profound, but clearly turbulent. "And you clearly want to be part of this, be the center of the change. Arrogant fool." The silhouettes were multiplying around them, flickering for a longer period of time, but still vague and blurry. "For them, we are as important as an X-Fighter or a blaster. We are tools, weapons, mascots really. That is all that serving a cause can bring us, being used, Rey."

Hearing her name from him shook her. You don't ever realize how personal your name can be until when it is used by someone you never thought would say it.

"How could we live when the war is raging. How could we turn our back to all of this? We have to have hope that we can free them, that we can be the key or at least a part of it. Or else, we are completely useless and I can't bear to be useless. I've been worthless all my life!" She was screaming, now fairly certain that the occupants of the Falcon were now hearing her. For his part, the words kept flowing from his throat as a steady stream of rumbling thunder.

"I've been the hope of literally the whole world since I was born. Being forgotten tastes like a dream to me right now. Seems we genuinely are incompatible."

They both got silent. Not because they were finished; it was clear to both of them that they could have continued arguing for hours, feeling bursts of their respective energy pound their very soul continuously as they exchanged ideas, experiencing intense heat explore each of their conscience in an intricate ballet. But they had to stop. Because the sheets of paper had stalled in mid-air, fixed in a strange rain of opalescent ivory.

The silver silhouettes were now steady. Thousands of faces, looking right through them in a dignified silence, immobile and exhaling strength. Force ghosts. All of them.

Rey and Ben turned around a couple of time, then stopped, stunned, shoulders brushing against one another when their gaze fell on a known face: Luke Skywalker. A smile lifted his cheeks for a brief moment as he embraced them both with warmth. He was at peace.

All of their voices grew into one, echoing around the vast chamber. It was like a strong buzzing of ideas, like if their words were painting a picture, a perception, a sentiment. It was a pure, untouched hope. The two young warriors felt their lungs emptied with a drastic exhale. A deep faith was settling in each of their cells.

All the shadows combined into one, the air shivering around this embodiment of energy. In a swift motion, the shape passed through them, then disappeared.

They were on the floor, breathless, covered in sweat and tears. Their hands were joined on the cold tiles of the floor, their joints whitened from the force with which they were holding on to each other.

"And you still think that we mean nothing…?" asked Rey, in a whisper, fastening her pupils to his.

The bridge that was connecting them broke abruptly as the door to the study room opened.

* * *

The resistance's General had felt a colossal wave in the force. It was coming from where she had put _him_. It alarmed her. Not wanting to put anyone in danger, she subtly got out of what she was doing and followed the perturbation. She was imagining the worst; he had lost control, was preparing a slaughter. He was doing exactly what she feared from the first moment she was him on the mineral planet.

But when she got there, he was on the ground, panting. He was the most vulnerable he had ever been since his childhood. He was looking at the ceiling, just there, his defenses down. She could have sworn he was lying next to someone else, but the shape was gone in a blink. She got closer and made a decision.

"You can work, right?"

Ben blinked a couple times, still unsure of what he just had experienced. He got on his elbows and saw his mother.

"What do you mean?"

"Keeping you there is almost as secure as having you anywhere. You can be useful, as you want too so much. We have hundreds of containers and files to go through. You'd be as good as any to help."

A little flame of anger sparked in his chest, but he tried to extinguish it. He thought about Rey, about what she was believing in… about what just happened. He nodded once, silently. She answered with the same motion and walked away.

"You can begin here. I am sure there is plenty to be found in all those files on the floor"

As he was rising and regaining contact with reality, his mind traveled to a moving point amongst the stars. He squeezed his hands into the emptiness of the room.

Rey's chest got filled with warmth as she squeezed back.

They would be able to exist through this burden that was put on them.

 _ **[So I am taking a little break for the new year's celebration! Hope to see you soon! Thanks for the support!]**_


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